A week ago, near the end of February, I was taking the dog for a walk on Kai Iwi Beach, just north of Archer’s Bridge which crosses the Kai Iwi Stream. I usually keep an eye open for interesting stones – most of the widely-scattered stones along this beach are iron-stained quartz, with the occasional rare green argillite with a trace fossil. I spotted this small stone in the dry sand and it looked different from the usual ones. The surface of the stone that was showing didn’t have the dullness I’m most used to seeing here. There seemed to be a bit of a sheen to it. So I picked it up to check it out. Turning it over, I was very surprised to see what looked like lots of tiny orbs on part of the stone. And the orbs seemed to stand out from the rest of the stone a little, as if they were harder:
The other side of the stone:
As I have noted in this Post, orbs form due to the presence of minerals which crystallise in concentric layers around a nucleus or central point, giving rise to orb-like structures. Many of the “orbs” in my Kai Iwi Beach find appear to have some kind of structure, with a central point apparent in some. And the stone itself could be jasper, given its fine-grained character and colour – I have had similar coloured stones from the Coromandel identified for me as jasper. I am not aware of such a find before on this beach (or nearby).
This Post examines the stone after some tumbling.
What a beauty and so unusual too! Nice find! 🤩
I get it in the whanganui river up here at taumarunui. Except its different. Its usually opaque and has a forest green to lime green matrix and the spots are red.
Thanks for this information, appreciate you making the effort in sharing it. Sounds like an interesting combination of colours!